Stoke City manager Mark Robins claims "people don't want to hear" about the club's progress because their Championship promotion push has faded.
The Potters, who only avoided relegation on the final day of last season, have won just three of their past 16 league matches.
Robins, who took over in January last year, insists his side have improved.
He told BBC Radio Stoke: "You know why we are where we are. We've come from being a game away from relegation last season to this.
"It seems like people don't want to hear that, but that is part of the timeline of trying to build success.
"You can't do that overnight. We've said that straight all the way through. We need to be together and we need to see it through.
"And if everybody takes stock and looks at actually what is happening, what's happened and what needs to happen moving forward, you can see that there's a progression there."
Stoke enjoyed an encouraging start to the season but are currently 16th in the table.
"The disappointment comes from the emotion of the fact that we started off so well," Robins admitted.
"We lost a load of players through a period. We haven't had them for a long time and it's impacted what we've been able to do.
"But like I said, I could come and sulk because I could see that this was a time where we could kick on and go and really achieve something.
"It hasn't happened. I'm disappointed, but what do I do? I roll my sleeves up and we go again."
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